2:34 PM

A few days before Bellator Fighting Championships' first lightweight title defense, champion Eddie Alvarez hopes to stay busy, challenger Pat Curran is happy he had several months to heal and train and CEO Bjorn Rebney says he's thrilled with his line-up over the next few weeks.

"I'm really happy with the shows that we've got put together and the fights that are going to be in the cage," Rebney says. "It's just a matter of promoting them."

In a week without competition from bigger promotions, Rebney's organization has a chance to make a splash with Bellator 39 on Saturday (9 p.m. ET, MTV2) in Uncasville, Conn. Alvarez, Curran and Rebney spoke to reporters on Wednesday. Excerpts from the conference call:

Sergio Non, USA TODAY: Eddie, this is your first fight in awhile. You've said before that one reason you signed with Bellator is that you felt they could keep you busy. How concerned are you that you might not be getting as many fights as you'd like?

Alvarez: Last year, a lot of people expected me to fight a lot more, but I think people forgot I had surgery in the beginning of the year. I was coming off surgery on my meniscus, so it was to my advantage that I actually wasn't as active last year so I could recover and heal.

But this year I definitely want to be more active, and that's something me and Bjorn are going to have to sit down and address. I would like to fight, at the very least, three times, and at the most, five.

I like to stay busy and it is on my mind. It's often on my mind. That's just something me and Bjorn are going to have to sit down and work out the details on.

USA TODAY: I was reading a piece today online in which you talked about how being with Bellator is financially better for you than being with UFC. I was wondering if you could go into that a bit -- how does Bellator benefit you in ways that UFC can't?

Alvarez: Well, I think flexibility. I think the fact that when I speak to Bjorn, when I have a big win, we both sit down and we strategize. We're willing to co-promote.

That's a lot of advantages for a fighter that most fighters can't get in the UFC or in Strikeforce and things of that nature.

What it did was, it allowed me to go out and go in Dream, and go in Strikeforce, if I was able to, and fight the better guys. Bjorn was ready and willing to do that for me, as well as pay me what I thought I deserved. So that to me, was the better choice.

USA TODAY: Given the way the Japanese market has fallen off these days, and with Zuffa buying Strikeforce, do you see a lot of opportunities out there outside Bellator these days?

Alvarez: I think the only options right now, you've got UFC and you've got Bellator -- that's it. You've got to pick one and go with them.

Right now, my loyalty's with Bellator. They're growing consistently and so am I. I would like to help build a brand, as well as build my brand at the same time.

The network we're on now, MTV2, every fighter, not just myself, will be exposed to millions of people. And they won't have to take a monster pay cut to do so, whereas a lot of UFC fighters, they have to pay to get that kind of exposure. They get it taken out of their check, in order to have that sort of popularity they have.

I didn't have to take that kind of pay cut, and I'm still being able to be exposed to millions of fans and viewers.

USA TODAY: One question for Bjorn. Eddie just talked about being on MTV2. It looks like your numbers there are up from what they were on Fox Sports Net. But at the same time, at least from what I've read, it looks like they've taken a bit of a hit in the last couple of weeks going head-to-head with UFC. ... How concerned are you about having to run into UFC every few weeks?

Rebney: Not particularly concerned.

Three weeks ago, when we kicked off the lightweights and Patricky (Freire) had his great fight against Razor (Rob McCullough), on the back-to-back shows we had over 550,000 viewers. And then we had two weeks back-to-back, of these last two weeks, where we've had to go two hours early.

The two-hour earlier start time messes with your consistency, and then also you've got -- unfortunately or fortunately depending on if you're a basketball fan -- you've got March Madness right in the throngs of going from 16 to eight to four. So those have been impact issues relative to ratings.

But as I've said many times, what we're doing in terms of building out this brand and this partnership with MTV2 and MTV networks -- this is a marathon; this is not a sprint.

I'm thrilled with what's going on content-wise. When you've got a guy like an Eddie Alvarez, and he's now healed and ready to rock and roll -- we've got a spectacular lightweight tournament going on right now. One of the guys is going to surface out of that and be the No. 1 contender and earn the right to fight Eddie Alvarez vis-a-vis our tournament.

I'd like to get Eddie busy in July or August again. I'd love to do something in Philadelphia again and have another sold out, raucous crowd in Philly.

I'm not getting too drawn up in the numbers. What I'm getting drawn up in is really improving the quality of our production crewing, increasing the quality of our fights and just trying to make this bigger and better.

The fights we've got coming up over the next four weeks are just blistering. So I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, what kind of impact that has, both in terms of live-event attendance and the ratings that we do.

Steven Marocco, MMAjunkie.com: Bjorn, I wanted to ask you how you felt about the Youtube clips that you guys were putting out this season, and if you felt that they were getting the same sort of traction as they did in the first season.

Rebney: Oh, I love them.

Rich (Hale)'s took off because that's just a freak of nature. You see a 6-foot-4 guy who used to fight at a super-heavyweight pulling off a standing inverted triangle, that's just nuts. It's taken off. I think it's up around 130,000 or 140,000 hits right now.

The "Pitbull" brothers' two clips, Patricio and Patricky, have done great numbers. I love it as a vehicle.

I think the bottom line is -- we all forget because we've been around this and talking about and thinking about Bellator for the last couple of years -- but we're still a relatively new brand in terms of general-market crossover. We're eliminating some of that based on 80-million-homes-man's-best-friend MTV2, (which) helps to change that dynamic very quickly.

But the brand's still relatively young. So the more you can feed out there in terms of Youtube; the more you can get out there vis-a-vis social networking and Facebook and the like; Twitter and everything else; the better off you are.

It's a vehicle and it's a tool that we'll continue to use. I think it's been instrumental in building the brand, and it will help to push more people to MTV2, live and free on Saturday night.

I've been excited about it. When I'm tooling around and I'm sitting in an airport, I'll literally log on and check out Rich Hale's submission or Patricio's knockout or Patricky's knockout, or any number of the other Bellator moments we've had.

It's been key to us in the past, and it'll keep being a nice additional benefit to our distribution and content strategy.

MMAjunkie.com: How much do you feel is riding on this card? You've got Eddie, one of your biggest stars; Ben Saunders. How much is riding on this card?

Rebney: Gosh, I mean, we've got 25 shows live in primetime on MTV2 this year, and 27 the following. It's another great Bellator event.

I think what's riding on it is that you've got our lightweight title on the line with a guy who's respected by many as the best lightweight in the world, and a guy who's had an amazing, amazing run to get to this point. You've got a returning champion fighting a U.S. Olympian. You've got a lot of emotion and a lot of dedication and a lot of focus on the line.

But in terms of its significance to Bellator, I'm just hoping this Saturday night comes close to being what the last three weeks have been, and then I'm hopeful that next week, when we get to watch champions and superfights and other semifinal fights, (is) great. I don't know that it has that much more significance to us as a company.

But I know it has an enormous amount of significance to the gentlemen on this call, and 16 other fighters that are getting ready for Saturday.

MMAjunkie.com: Pat, it's been a long time since you've been in the cage. Can you talk a little bit about your road to recovery and how it's been getting ready for this fight?

Curran: Yeah. After my shoulder injury, it took about a month to fully heal, and thank God, it did.

The injury was almost a blessing in disguise, because it gave me more time to prepare for Eddie, and to work on my game. So I'm actually glad that it happened. It gave my body enough time to rest and heal.

Brian Hemminger, Cageside Seats: My first question would be for Pat. The heel hook has kind of been your goto move if you go for a submission on the ground, and as a lot of us know, Eddie's last loss was a heel hook to Shinya Aoki. Do you have any confidence going for that submission against Eddie? Do you think you could pull that off?

Curran: I'm pretty confident in every one of my submissions. After you get caught in a heel hook, that'd be the first thing you go back in the gym and start working on, so I'm pretty sure he worked on his defense for the heel hook.

But if I see, I see it. If I don't, I've got other options.

Cageside Seats: Eddie, you and Pat were both standout wrestlers in high school. How do you feel you compare with Pat in pure wrestling?

Alvarez: Pure wrestling, I'm not sure what Pat has done in high school. I mean, I was a two-time All-American in high school. I did really well. The only reason I didn't go to college was the whole weight-cutting thing, which is quite ironic, because I'm cutting weight again. But I did really well.

If Pat does have good wrestling, I don't feel that he uses it. I don't know if he uses it well enough in the cage. I don't think that he's good at transitioning from his punching, from his stand-up, to his wrestling. Watching a lot of his tapes, it looks like he gives it away. He makes it look like it's coming.

Pure wrestling really doesn't mean anything to me anymore. It's really the ability to transition from one art -- stand-up, kicking, to punching -- and doing it seamlessly. And from what I've seen in his tapes, it just didn't look like the way he transitions are disguised enough, maybe I should say.

But we'll see. I could be wrong. He's been working on some things and so have I. It'll be interesting to see the first couple of minutes, to see about where I want to take the fight.

Cageside Seats: I've got a couple of questions for Bjorn. With no major UFC events until April 30, you've kind of got a big four-week window here to really make a name for yourself and build a lot of momentum. How important do you feel these next four weeks are for Bellator?

Rebney: Like I said before, I think every event is important. Every event is vital in terms of putting on a great show and putting spectacular fights in the cage, and consistently improving the qualitative level of our production.

So like I said, I look at this over the long run. We finally got this magical alliance with an enormous distribution platform over a number of years.

So the next four fights will be really important. And then the following four after will be really important. As we close in on the season and establish the champions of these four tournaments, those are going to be keenly important.

It's nice to not be in a situation where you're bumping time frames. It's great to not be in a situation where you're bumping up a couple of hours. We've got that pesky March Madness situation going on this Saturday with the Final Four.

But I'm really happy with the shows that we've got put together and the fights that are going to be in the cage. It's just a matter of promoting them. If you've been paying attention and watching any number of MTV, MTV2, Spike, MTV Tr3s, etc., you've seen all kinds of promotion and marketing for the Bellator events. If you were walking down in Times Square a couple of weeks ago, you're seeing billboards; you're seeing all kinds of endemic-market site coverage.

So we'll see. They're important, but again -- I'm not trying to discount it or be politically correct -- but they're not vitally important, other than just being spectacular shows that I hope a lot of people get a chance to tune in(to) and watch.

Cageside Seats: Are you happy with the move to Saturday night so far?

Rebney: Yeah, I'm thrilled. ... What I'm really happy about is that, as you've seen, sold-out house in Tachi Palace; sold-out house in Oklahoma; big numbers happening this week at Mohegan Sun.

Thursday night was nice, because it gave us our own kind of cool, little Seinfeld-esque niche. But the reality is, when you're at an event, you want to see a lot of people; you want a lot of enthusiasm. Fans at home look at an event and they look at how many people are in those seats, and they need to feel like they're missing something. And Saturday night gives you the opportunity to do that.

Saturday night, in terms of lot of other measurables, is a great night for fighting. It's a great night for our demo. So I'm happy with the move.

Thursday night was what it was, but it obviously had a lot of pre-emption issues. It had a lot of problems that we faced as part of our last partnership. But all of those have been eliminated with MTV2 and MTV Networks on Saturday nights, live and free.

So I'm very happy with it, and that's where I believe we'll stay for many years to come.

Rafa Brito, ElOctagano.com: Eddie, the first question is for you. ... How difficult is it for you to separate your love for the sport and obviously your ambition to be considered the No. 1 talent in the division, and to separate that from the fact that you're making good money here, but the great fighters -- or the ones that are considered the top five -- are with the UFC and Strikeforce? Where do you draw the line and how do you go about it?

Alvarez: Because I'm a fighter first.

I understand that in order to get in the ranking, you have to gain popularity. I've been saying this over and over: There's going to be guys in the next couple of years from Bellator who are going to be ranked in the top 10. And that's not necessarily because they're better than the UFC guys; it's going to be because they're just as popular, so they can't be denied rankings.

They're very subjective, and they have a lot to do, the rankings, with whether you're in the UFC or not. It's very political.

Like I said, I think it's more of a popularity contest than a talent contest. Luckily, I'm popular enough to be able to get in there, and I fight well. But you're going to have guys who are unknowns who are very talented, but once they become known, they can earn their ranking.

Ranking to me, is just a way to negotiate my money with the promotion. Other than that, they hold no bearing in who's who and who can beat who.

This No. 5 can beat No. 3 -- that's all nonsense. A No. 1 guy can lose to a No. 10 guy any day of the week. It's really pure nonsense. It's just how we get paid and how we negotiate our pay to me.

ElOctagono.com: During your camp for this fight, this whole union between UFC and Strikeforce came along, and obviously you've been having to answer all these types of questions. Has it been difficult to put everything aside and just concentrate on Pat Curran for next Saturday night?

Alvarez: Not at all, man. I'm very fortunate to have the support I have with my wife, my family, my fans. They allow me to be very selfish and just focus on the guy that I have to fight.

My wife is very understanding, me being away from home and not necessarily spending the time that I have to with her and the kid. She knows for the better good that I will be No. 1 in the world. She knows the sacrifices that come along with that, for her and me. So I'm very fortunate to have the support I have to, to be able to be completely focused on the person that's in front of me.

It actually makes me quite dangerous, because I get crazy with watching tape, watching video, studying moves and going over things over and over and over. It gets monotonous, but when I get sick of it, that's when I know I'm ready.

ElOctagono.com: Pat ... does that help you, inspire you, pump you, get you mad, the fact that when you listen to people, nobody gives you a chance to win Saturday or to beat Eddie Alvarez in the division?

Curran: It really doesn't bother me. But after this fight, people are definitely going to know who I am and they're going to change how they think some.

Franklin McNeil, ESPN: Bjorn ... right now the tournament format works for you guys. But being that Eddie's the champion, it does kind of put him on the shelf. Do you see yourself putting him in him and other champions in more non-title fights, or even one day abandoning the tournament format?

Rebney: I never see us abandoning the tournament format.

I think the objectivity and fighters controlling their destiny is kind of what has made Bellator what it is. It's our seminal point of difference from the industry leader in the UFC. We're two very, very different formats.

If you looked at a lot of the other organizations that have come and gone, those organizations don't have a significant point of difference. Some of them tried to add peripheral things like team concepts and uniforms and ridiculous stuff that didn't have a fit.

But from a reality perspective, we are a different dynamic, a different format, a different way of watching mixed martial arts, which I think is infinitely fair, and I think it's what is duplicated in every other major sport.

People forget, I think the most exciting, visceral fight that Eddie Alvarez has had under our banner was the Roger Huerta fight. Huge crowd Philadelphia, huge action, a spectacular fight, non-title fight, superfight. Lot of them are done in Japan, or have been done in Japan in the past.

I think Eddie is one of the best pound-for-pound -- one of the most exciting pound-for-pound -- fighters in mixed martial arts, so we're going to get him busy.

We've got a spectacular lightweight tournament going right now. It's going to end on May 21st or 23rd. When it ends, we're going to have a challenger. Whether that challenger is Chandler or Patricky "Pitbull" or whoever it is, that challenger is ultimately going to have earned the right to face Eddie, and we're going to have another title fight lined up.

God willing, there's no injury, a la happened to Pat, and we can get that lined up very quickly for the summer.

And then there's a lot of free agents at '55 right now looking for work or looking for a big fight. So there'll probably be another big superfight while we get the next tournament lined up. And who's to say? Perhaps Eddie wins that fight, perhaps Eddie doesn't win that fight.

But our ability to keep Eddie busy now, with 25 live, free events on MTV2 coming up literally before Thanksgiving, is really dramatic. We have a great plug-and-play principle, Franklin, in terms of keeping guys busy, keeping guys active.

Eddie touched on it. From a ratings perspective, you have to look at guys like Jon Jones. You have to look at guys that came into this game recently. If you'd asked 1,000 MMA fans a year and two months ago who Jon Jones was, you'd get a lot of blank stares. And he's on The Tonight Show. Why is that? Because he got monster coverage. He got enormous coverage and saturation from a media perspective, and was on television a lot.

So this is an enormous catalyst for us, to be able to build up guys -- whether it's a Toby Imada or whether it's a Patricky "Pitbull" or whoever it happens to be -- to be positioned to have them jump from No. 14 in the world to No. 7 in the world, to a position where when they fight Eddie, ultimately it's catapulting one of them into the No. 2 spot or the No. 1 spot.

Or whether they're fighting Pat, and suddenly Pat at '55 is jumping from where he currently is up.

It's about television coverage and exposure and being able to build these guys up. With our partnership with MTV2, we've got the ultimate platform to do it.

So you'll be seeing a lot of Eddie Alvarez over the next nine months to a year.

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